Happy December everyone! ❄ ⛄ Unfortunately, it hasn't been the
best December for my collection so far, but hopefully that will change as the month goes on.
First off, several of my
Deropeltis sp. "Jinka" oothecae have molded over, when opened the contents revealed brown mush. I'm having flashbacks of my failure to breed
Dorylaea orini, as the same thing happened to their oothecae. 😞 However, it's come to my attention that I may very well be the last person in the USA keeping this species, so if I lose these, who knows when I or any other US hobbyist will be able get them again!? 😱
I've taken all of the oothecae out of the main enclosure, and moved them to a 24 oz container with good ventilation, a thin layer of almost dry coconut fiber as the substrate, and bark bits and pieces of moss here and there, so if/when they hatch, the nymphs will have places to hide until I find them. I've also thrown in some
Sinella curviseta springtails, because despite all my complaints about them, they do help in keeping mold levels down.
The container is on top of a heat cable, well, the heat cable is wrapped in newspaper and the container is on top of another container's lid, just to make sure the ooths don't overheat or dry out completely, like they probably would if I put the enclosure
directly on the heat cable. I've been misting them lightly a couple times daily, as the heat still does dry things out quite a bit, and some of the ooths were starting to dimple a bit, (a sign of dehydration).
So far things are looking OK, I really hope at least a couple of these oothecae hatch. Unfortunately my adults are getting old, and most of the ooths my females are laying are either tiny or really deformed looking. Will keep my fingers crossed for some successful oothecae hatchings, that would be a great Christmas present! 😁
Well, all but one of my
Pystalla horrida nymphs have matured now, which is great! Sadly though, one adult came out with a completely bent and deformed front leg, and a deformed antenna. I doubt it can catch prey by itself now, so I'm hoping it will share meals with it's brethren, (which I've seen the nymphs do several times), otherwise I'll have to tong-feed it, and I rarely have success tong feeding things, (IDK if my hands shake too much or something, I've had a few predatory inverts attack what I have in the tongs, but they never seem to grab it...).
Also, none of my adults have fed yet, which worries me too, so there's that... I've got a few ideas on how to fix that situation though, so I'll keep you posted on them!
My
Pasimachus sp. "Arizona" pupa has eclosed, just in time too, since the day before it did there was a little mold growing on it! 😮 At first, the adult looked perfect, the elytra are nice and smooth, there are no dents anywhere, all that was left was for the elytra to finish inflating and cover the rest of the exposed abdomen.
Buuuuuuut, they never did. 😑 I am not sure why, but the elytra do not fit the abdomen at all, and there is quite a bit of abdomen left exposed. Really sucks, wish I knew what I could have done to prevent it.
Anyway, here are some pictures of it, first as a teneral adult, then with the finished coloration:
You can kinda see a little wrinkled, dimpled spot near the end of the elytral seam, I think that's where the elytra stopped inflating for whatever reason, and since that spot didn't inflate completely, they failed to cover the rest of the abdomen. Oh well, at least this deformity doesn't seem to hinder it's ability to survive much, it just ate a mealworm the other day.
Lastly, I cleaned out my
Cariblatta lutea enclosure, since they don't seem to be doing all that great, and there were a lot of dead bodies in that enclosure due to a
previous accident. So, I cleaned it all out, put in some new substrate, (no sand this time), new hides, etc., so hopefully they'll start doing better now!
Also, my main
Cariblatta minima colony just seems to be going downhill, doesn't look like they will beat the mites. So, over the next few weeks I'll be periodically removing a few roaches at a time, putting them in a quarantine deli cup with paper towel as the substrate to make sure no mites came with them, and will then put them in with the small group of adults I separated from the main enclosure a little while ago. Then, when all of the roaches are gone, I'll thoroughly clean out and sterilize the main enclosure, and place them back in it, since it is larger than the enclosure I'm currently keeping the mite-free
C.minima in.
Anyway, that is going to do it for today's post, thank you everyone for reading, will see you all soon! 😉
